Oberthur demos AirSIM for 'wide field communication'

29 February 2012 | 1304 views | 0Source: Oberthur

Oberthur Technologies, the world's second largest provider of security and identification solutions and services based on smart card technologies, and Ingecom, a market leader in Radio-Frequency products, have collaborated to integrate a high frequency chip and antenna in a SIM card.

This prototype, AirSIM, allows to uniquely identify a mobile user and to communicate with a receiver remotely located.

While Near Field Communications (NFC) technology allows proximity transactions, AirSIM allows wide field communications at a distance ranging from few centimetres up to 15 meters. This range can obviously be regulated through the detector.

This universal technology does not require an antenna-equipped handset or any software or hardware modifications on the device.

The demonstration at MWC 2012 will showcase an e-ticketing application that illustrates how this technology can be used to save time to passengers and money to transport authorities. Physical access control barriers, accurate billing and paper tickets are seen today as a challenge for a fluid and efficient transportation system. As a consequent, some transport operators remove access control barriers and replace fraud prevention by on-board control. In this context, the AirSIM allows the transport authority to efficiently bill the customer after the trip, depending on the time and also the entry and exit points of the traveller.In parallel, users can access new services through their preferred device without the need of additional cards; their privacy is respected, as they can easily stop the tracking function through a menu.

User identification and accurate positioning can allow many other use cases such as micro-payment without stopping or getting off the car, geo-marketing and associated couponing, access control.